North
"When the Primordials first came to exist, they exhaled. Their cold breath created the first elemental pole, the Pole of Air, and the land crystallized into existence from that point." - Popular Northern Myth. The Land As one goes farther north, the cold becomes increasingly bitter. Winter here is long and cruel, and even in the short summers freezing rain lashes herds of elk, mammoth and reindeer. It is said that in the farthest North, there is nothing but a great expanse of snow and wind. Beyond even that lies the Elemental Pole of Air. This is sparsely peopled land, a land of survival rather than grace, with city-states and Icewalker tribes scattered across its vast expanse. http://i733.photobucket.com/albums/ww334/zfairborn/TheNorth_zps3aea2de8.jpg The People Northerners are typically pale skinned, with hair ranging from jet black to platinum blond. Given the extreme conditions, the people are hale and hearty, with large frames and heavy builds predominating. The language of the North is Sky-tounge. There are no fixed customs for marriage in the North. If the ghosts of one’s ancestors do not signal disapproval, then the marriage is blessed and deserves prosperity. Even in cities, Northerners make offerings to their ancestor cults and the dark spirits of snow and frost and hunger. Herders and hunters offer sacrifices to the herd animal spirits and the spirits of the hunt, respectively, but the vast majority of devotions go to the dead. In turn, ancestors’ spirits protect them and guide them across the trackless snows, driving away evil spirits and bringing warnings of plagues and blizzards. Given the lack of spare food and resources, Northerners typically abandon unwanted or deformed children. Despite two Deathlords having their dwellings in the Northern lands —the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears and the Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible — most tribes pay proper respect to their ancestors and scorn these Abyssal cults. Wars between the city-states are rare, as it is difficult to support a standing army on the scarce supplies that the North provides. It’s easier to bribe the Icewalker, who sweep across the plains in a constant wash of death and hunger, to do the work for you and then pick over what’s left if they succeed. Hidden tomb-mounds and cemeteries are guarded by the tribes’ finest warriors, and chieftains are buried with their weapons to use in the Underworld and are sacrificed beasts to serve as their herds there. Exiles across all Creation hide in the North, finding havens in manses too dangerous for the Realm to claim, lands too harsh for others to survive in, and places where no other human may set foot for years. The Past When the First Age ended and the Solar wonders crumbled, many of the glories of the North fell with them. No longer could chariots transport riders thousands of miles in bare hours, and no longer could enchanted gardens grow fruit that would feed hungry cities. While some of the Solar roads remain, such as the Traveler’s Road to Whitewall, most have been shattered by enemy armies or fallen to the corrosion of time. Cities drew in on themselves to survive, or they were lost to the snows, and the icewalker tribes picked over their bones. A large number of petty kingdoms and city-states fringes the coastlines of the Inland Sea and the more northerly White Sea. The southward areas are tributaries and puppets of the Realm; some ruled by scion families, such as the city-state of Cherak, under the patrician Jerem family, but the cities become progressively more independent as one travels north. Northern states are often rude affairs, usually consisting of an enthroned strongman propped up by a table full of well-fed thugs with swords and axes. Only Whitewall, The Haslanti League and Gethamane are states of truly notable power. In the barren spaces between the seas, the kingdoms shrink to towns and the city-states to isolated hamlets, and people band together to scratch out a living as shabby democracies. A number of other city-states of varying size lie around Whitewall, spokes to its central hub. While traders can journey to them directly, Whitewall serves as a convenient staging post and base, and many caravans would rather plot their trek via Whitewall and take the extra days that such a journey requires, rather than risk the Fair Folk and the walking dead on lesser roads and across the snow. Southwest of Whitewall, scattered along the mountain peaks, are the tiny but independent silverholds, a collection of forts, mining camps and goat-herding villages that barely survive from year to year but have done so for centuries. Some are said to leave sacrifices for airborne demons or to make candles that have the power to summon and control spirits. Major States Gethamane: The City under the mountain, this isolated impenetrable fortress holds many secrets that even its inhabitants are ignorant of. The Haslanti League: A collection of minor states that have unified Whitewall: Named for its massive enchanted perimeter, this metropolis takes shelter in the valley of Black Crag Mountains. Minor States Cherak lies southeast of Whitewall. Affiliated with the Jerem scion family but haunted by infestations of the undead. While it has appealed to its Imperial connections, no Great House can spare the forces to cleanse the lands once and for all, and the state grows weaker with every passing month. Fella; set North-West of Whitewall is the City of Broken Walls. Here no stone will remain atop another for more than an hour before casting itself down. All standing buildings are wood or ivory, and the inhabitants have cruel laws controlling where fires may be lit. Shanarinara; Northeast of Whitewall; a would-be expansionist democracy hemmed in by the Haslanti League and Gethamane and by Whitewall’s own interests but without the strength to go further. It is pondering an alliance with one of the Deathlords. The Ice Walkers; Nomadic barbarian tribes who tend their herds and seek war and plunder as they follow the yearly elk and mammoth migrations from east to west and back again The Northern Wilds; The Realm holds limited sway over the North—in part because the Scarlet Dynasty, for many years, did not care enough to conquer the region. Long winters, harsh weather and frozen earth made the land an unpleasant place to live, offering little luxury or riches for the Dynasts. The North does supply large quantities of furs and ivory to other parts of Creation, however, and lucrative mines of diamonds and blue jade lie beneath the snow. The Far North is also the only source of feathersteel — a metal as strong as iron, at a third of the weight. Unfortunately for the Realm, such treasures either have formidable defenders or are widely dispersed. Whitewall’s Syndics, the mountain fastness of Gethamane, the faraway, decentralized Haslanti League and the ferocious icewalkers control many such resources. Over the centuries, all four have amply demonstrated that they can protect themselves. Atop these mundane obstacles, the North holds powerful nations of cunning and cruel Fair Folk, Wyld-twisted barbarians of implacable savagery, and shadowlands haunted y powerful ghosts. The Realm’s leaders deem the cost to exceed the rewards. This suits the independent Northerners well enough. PREHISTORY AND THE FIRST AGE The Dragon Kings ventured northward long before humanity existed, roosting high in the Northern mountains or racing across the plains. Humanity followed reluctantly, often as refugees pushed from the richer lands of the East. Once in the North, though, they adapted swiftly — or died. Some became nomads and followed herds of reindeer and mammoth. Others turned to wresting crops from the tough ground. Violence and warfare broke out frequently, as different groups sought to carve out their own territories. Strength of arm ruled, rather than diplomacy. Meanwhile, the winged Pterok breed of Dragon King soared over it all, watching humanity with amused dispassion. Then the gods rose up to make war against their creators. THE AGE OF SPLENDOR No part of Creation escaped the imperious gaze of its Exalted rulers, but the Solar Deliberative ruled the North with a lighter hand than in other regions. The Exalted frequently felt the area held the last true wildernesses within the civilized empire of the Lawgivers. More than one area avoided falling under the Deliberative’s rule, with many more attracting only light attention from the central government. Still, to say that the North was the wildest territory in the Age of Splendor is only to say that it had comparatively fewer cities. The Deliberative still transformed the face of the North with vast terraforming and climate change projects. The White Valley Province in particular, fertilized by the corpse of Ta’akozoka, the Great Tentacled One from the Sea, (slain by The sorcerer-Engineer Racha Weaver-of-Truths who built the Spidersilk Dam at the mouth of the White Sea to destroy the Primordial, draining away the waters that gave the Primordial life) yielded lush crops. To increase the arable land, the Deliberative gouged huge valleys into the White Valley’s upper slopes—the greenfields—geomantically shaped to concentrate the sun’s warmth. The Solars crafted wondrous cities, as well. Among them were: * the city of Ondar Shambal (later called Whitewall), a prayer to the Unconquered Sun crafted in stone; * the City of the Mountain Gateway (later called Gethamane), a hub that connected all the directions of Creation and Yu- Shan; * the flying city of Tzatli, borne aloft by crackling ropes of lightning; Regardless, civilization lay lightly in some areas. Lunars and adventurous young Solars favored the North because of the abundant wilderness areas. The unforgiving steppes and blizzards, along with stranger landscapes sculpted by terraforming engines, offered challenges for restless young Exalted that they could find nowhere else. No wonder, then, that people who felt less than thrilled by the Deliberative often gathered in the North. The population of these areas swelled as the High First Age decayed, the madness of the Solars grew more apparent and the disaffected sought any place where they might escape the excesses of the Lawgivers. It would not be the last time the North became a refuge. THE USURPATION When the Dragon-Blooded and their Sidereal allies struck, many Solars fled to the North for the same reasons as earlier refugees. Famed architect Kal Bax erected a hidden manse somewhere in the farthest North, where he hid with companions to vanish from the pages of history. Other Lawgivers and their Lunar consorts returned to their home cities for a last stand, or fled and turned to fight when they could run no more. The Solar First Sun’s Cry broke the Spidersilk Dam in a spiteful deathblow, releasing the Great Western Ocean into the White Valley to drown his attackers—and the millions that lived in the valley. All the cities along the White Valley died in the onslaught, their shining towers shattered beneath titanic waves. The pain and terror of the dead stained the new seafloor with shadowlands, where ghosts wandered in the lightless depths among the walls of their broken cities. Many other cities fared no better. Tzatli fell amid arcs of splintering lightning and buried itself in the ice, its evacuees scattering to the winds. The sorcerer Oa-Té staged his last stand in the reality-fixing city of Opal Spire, where he summoned the behemoth Vorvin-Derlin, Slayer of Armies. Weakened by battle, the sorcerer lost control of the monster. It consumed him and went berserk. Exalted and mortals both had to abandon the city as unrecoverable. The City of the Mountain Gateway suddenly went silent. No refugees fled the city, and Heaven itself does not know the fate of its vanished inhabitants. Even those places that escaped outright destruction felt the effects. Blood ran red through the shining streets of Whitewall as Bronze Faction conspirators felled its beloved rulers, Queen Tenrae and her consort Den’rahin. Wrathful Lawgivers out for vengeance all but depopulated Meteor’s Eye, the foremost university for astrological studies and the favored city of Sidereals in Creation. The golden arch of Brahm’s Bridge, spanning hundreds of miles over the Inland Sea, took legions of mortals with it when it crumbled into the water. Fragments of gold and sparkling Essence lit the sea for three weeks before the last vestige vanished entirely. THE SHOGUNATE After they slew the last Lawgivers, the Dragon-Blooded turned their attention to consolidating their rule. The Shogunate did its best to maintain the farms of the North, but the fighting had broken too many of the engines that kept the land warm and fertile. The Dragon-Blooded could maintain them, but lacked the knowledge to repair them or create new ones. With the cataclysmic breaking of the Spidersilk Dam, the North lost its primary breadbasket. The breakdown of the climate-control engines led to the loss of even more farmland. Year by year, the ice crept farther south, frost seeping into the ground, roads and aqueducts crumbling and decaying. The Shogunate slowly relinquished its hold on the further reaches of the North to focus on the warmer and more populous areas near the Inland Sea. With much of the land and the great cities wrecked, the wider reaches of North simply did not have much to offer the Shogunate for the trouble it took to bring the territory under control. Of course, the Shogunate never abandoned the land entirely. The areas bordering the River of Tears received special attention. While the inrushing White Sea had drowned the lake that used to be the source of the River of Tears, it left the river itself intact, though tainted by the salt from the new sea. The Shogunate built special manses along the upper reaches of the river that strained the salt from its waters. In time, the riverbanks became arable once more. Cities such as Plenilune arose, flourishing through the trade of salt and traffic between the White Sea and the Yanaze River. Regardless of its successes, however, the Shogunate lived in the perpetual shadow of its predecessor. Its attempts to erase the legacy of the Solars frequently ended badly. Whitewall never took well to the Dragon-Blooded regents, as their former rulers had evinced little of the madness that overtook the other Solars. Consequently, early attempts to destroy Solar iconography and monuments met with near-riots. Not far away, the psychotic Anjei Marama ran an extermination camp to destroy all the biological creations and servitor races of the Solars, as well as merely mortal loyalists. It served its bloody purpose. The millions of deaths also created the largest shadowland in the North. The Shogunate simply lacked the time and resources to combat the spread of Marama’s Fell and a host of other, smaller problems. THE GREAT CONTAGION Then the Contagion struck, overwhelming all that the Shogunate could do. Northern city folk crowded together for warmth and safety, and the disease spread among them like wildfire. Entire quarters died in a night. Refugees found nowhere to turn, as the sickness touched nearly every traveler who fled for parts unknown. Even Whitewall, with the powerful protections woven on it from the Solars of Ages past, fell victim. The Fair Folk invaded at the height of the plague. The raksha swept southward from the Wyld, killing those who had not been lucky enough to die in the Contagion. They all but depopulated the upper reaches of the North, drawing eddies of the Wyld after them. The advance legions of the Shogunate slowed the raksha but could not stop them. The armies of Creation and the Wyld clashed on the steppes, over the ice, in the mountains. They waged the fiercest of battles in the cities themselves, as cataphractoi leaped from the roofs and talons of soldiers swirled through the streets to meet them. In the city of Fellara, some say, the Fair Folk wove a story of destruction so potent that it leveled the entire city and continues to repeat itself to this day, the very stones refusing to believe that they can and should bond with one another. The raksha danced around Whitewall and laughed among the corpses in Plenilune, believing Creation on the verge of destruction. STARTING ANEW Then an ambitious young captain of the Ninth Legion took control of the ancient Lawgivers’ mightiest weapon and destroyed the Fair Folk invasion. Few in the North objected to the rise of the Scarlet Empress. Here and there, a lone Shogunate officer decided to carve out a kingdom for himself, but such territories never extended more than a few days’ travel across. Some of the survivors abandoned civilization completely: They pacted with the divine avatars of the mammoth, reindeer, musk ox and other Northern beasts to survive as nomadic hunters, and became the ancestors of the icewalker barbarians. The first major power arose when the Syndics arrived in Whitewall in RY 71, taking over the city as its protectors. A few years later, they negotiated the Thousand-Year Pact with the local Deathlords, Fair Folk and barbarian tribes, making sure that the Traveler’s Road remained sacrosanct and free of violence. With their safety ensured by the Road, traders began to flow between Whitewall and its coastal satellite of Wallport, bringing renewed prosperity to the city. Further settlements began to grow around fortuitous points of shelter and food. North of Whitewall, a ragged coalition of refugees stumbled across an empty city beneath a mountain, the lost remnant of an Age past. Finding the place safe, warm and supplied with food from enchanted fungus gardens deep within the mountain, they stayed and named the new settlement Gethamane. Another small village of refugees coalesced around the sheltered dell of Inara, whose hot springs once made it a favored getaway for the Dragon-Blooded. Those hot springs now formed a reliable source of water and warmth for the refugees. Shattered Fellara revived as Fella, a ragged shantytown of wooden shacks and incongruously advanced medical technology salvaged from the First Age medical school in the heart of the old city. Communities sprang up everywhere humanity could scratch out a living, but for many years, no state grew larger than a few townships across. THE EMPIRE OF BAGRASH KÖL And then the mortal sorcerer Bagrash Köl arose, wielding the Eye of Autochthon. With this staggeringly powerful artifact, he carved an entire nation from the Northern Wyld, forcibly taming the boundaries of Creation to his will. He called thousands of barbarians and peasants to his service, crushing resistance by force. The sorcerer lavished gifts upon those he favored, wonders whose like had not been seen since the Old Realm, and sent destruction upon those who displeased him. In the wake of his floating citadel, chaos stilled. Fields bloomed, herds multiplied, and the people blessed Bagrash Köl for his generosity… if they wanted to live. At its height, Bagrash Köl’s domain surpassed even the fledgling Scarlet Empire in size and grandeur. The Realm’s leaders watched in fear, and the Scarlet Empress readied herself to use the Imperial Manse, should Bagrash Köl move toward the Blessed Isle. It never came to that. Quite abruptly, the sorcerer vanished. The last time he appeared in public, he stormed out of the tributary city of Amathis, leaving glittering quartz statues behind him. Two weeks later, his palace crashed to the ground, fragments scattering on the winds. The Wyld swiftly roiled over the land Köl had wrested from it. Only a few hundred refugees reached the people living farther south, to tell them of the sorcerous empire’s doom. Of the Eye, there was no sign. The evidence of Bagrash Köl’s short-lived empire vanished within months, lost to the Wyld. Northern folk still tell stories of the sorcerer, however, and the glory, madness and terror of his reign. THE GUILD CREEPS NORTH One effect lingered, however: the presence of the Guild. When Köl established his empire, the Guild did not yet have a strong presence in the North. Brem Marst, the organization’s founder, leaped at the opportunity to trade with the growing kingdom. The success of the Guild in the following years attracted the sorcerer’s attention, and Marst received a personal invitation to Köl’s palace. The merchant, though quite elderly by then, accepted the invitation and arrived at the palace with great pomp. One week later, he departed with much less fanfare. Marst never revealed what he saw on his visit. In the following months, though, he quietly removed the Guild’s assets from Köl’s empire, shifting them to other Northern kingdoms. Within two years, the empire imploded. The Guild flourished in the aftermath, however, expanding to fill the commercial gap left by the loss of the North’s largest state. It took a special interest in the areas bordering the former empire and on the Great Ice, seeking lost treasures and artifacts of power. The Guild began to dominate large areas on both the Inland Sea coast and the eastern end of the White Sea, setting up virtual tribute states. While Cherak avoided this fate through its connection to the Realm, the Guild and the Realm would butt heads several times over who controlled a given city on the Inland Sea. Beyond clashing with the Guild and securing a hold on several coastal states, though, the Realm did not trouble itself overmuch with the North. Immaculates would occasionally sweep through a region, humbling the local spirits for a time. Less often, a Wyld Hunt would go out at the signs of an Anathema. One such campaign slew Arvida of the Crescent Eye, the Lunar patron of the Haslanti tribes around the White Sea. The ensuing madness of the Haslanti tribes gave the Guild a chance to move in, taking over the rudimentary Haslanti towns and bringing the Guild’s usual influx of slaves and drugs. Along the Inland Sea, meanwhile, the Realm and the Guild reached a truce by which the Guild received a monopoly on importing drugs to the Realm’s satrapies. THE RISE OF THE HASLANTI LEAGUE The Guild’s dominance planted the seeds of rebellion. Sick of the Guild’s demands for tribute, the Haslanti took to guerilla warfare, eventually confining the Guild to only a few trading camps along the White Sea. The rebellion came to a head in RY 582 when Gerd Marrow-Eater, a No Moon, called the Haslanti chiefs to the Twisted Stone Convocation. He convinced the Haslanti tribes that the time had come for them to unite and remove the Guild by force. The newly formed Haslanti League swiftly reclaimed their nascent cities and drove out the Guild. Nations across the North viewed the precipitously growing new power with alarm. The Scarlet Empress took more direct action. Correctly perceiving the new League to be the work of Anathema, she sent Immaculate monks to hunt the being responsible. The Immaculates never found Gerd Marrow-Eater or his Lunar compatriots, however. Indeed, the monks indirectly strengthened the League by humbling the lesser local spirits, freeing the Haslanti people from their demands. The Guild, naturally, took the greatest offense. In retaliation, it pressured Gethamane and the city-states of the River of Tears—the League’s nearest neighbors of any power—to cut the Haslanti off from its commerce. Guild leaders hoped the League would then have to accept the Guild as a trade middleman once more. In response, the Haslanti besieged Gethamane. As a proving ground for the newborn Haslanti League’s will and tenacity, the war succeeded admirably. While the Haslanti could not enter Gethamane, neither could the Guild. Eventually, the Guild gave in and settled for limited trade. The effective defeat of the Guild reduced its power in the North for decades thereafter and solidified the status of the Haslanti League as a nation to reckon with—especially given the air-boat technologies that the League developed during the war. THE WYLDFOG WAR (RY 674) Distance, the short season for warfare, and enemies from outside kept Northern folk from battling each other on any large scale for centuries,. The most widespread threat to face the North since Bagrash Köl came when the first Wyldfog (literal pockets of the Wyld that blew about with the wind) rolled down from the north. Wyldfogs swept in unpredictable eddies across the North, moving villages, turning trees into stone, ice or living flesh, and warping people and animals into monsters. Gethamane alone escaped its effects. Everywhere else suffered: The Haslanti League, as the northernmost state, bore the brunt of the storms of transformation. The Fair Folk used the opportunity to strike, and as many souls were lost to the predatory raksha as to the Wyldfogs. The attacks and the Wyldfogs ended only through a long campaign by the Lunar Exalted. THE BULL OF THE NORTH In RY 757, an aging icewalker, Yurgen Kaneko, walked into the winter and returned touched by the Unconquered Sun. He forged a number of icewalker tribes into an army and tested that army by conquering a number of minor city-states. Named the Bull of the North, Yurgen struck eastward in a campaign that ended with the destruction of the Tepet legions in the Battle of Futile Blood. Only then did Creation at large become aware of the power raising its head in the North. The Haslanti League becomes restless, feeling the conflict between its current civilized status and its barbarian roots. Grown arrogant in its successful defeat of all the conflicts to arise in its history, it seeks now to expand its borders and eyes Whitewall on the horizon. Haslanti leaders have no quarrel with Gethamane, having learned from the Gethamane War that the underground city is impossible to invade. The icewalkers face choices and possibilities they never imagined. The Bull of the North offers empire to people who hitherto lived in small tribes. Many tribes flock to his banner, but just as many fear the Bull and seek to preserve their old customs. Shanarinara begins to feel cramped. This alliance of democratic city-states envies the success of the Haslanti League and wants to imitate its expansion but lacks the Haslanti’s military technology (and secret Lunar patronage). Recently, agents of the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears have come courting. The nation’s senate has yet to turn them away. THE PRESENT These days, leaders throughout the North wonder what the Bull will do next. Still other tensions bubble beneath the surface, however. The Coastal Satrapies of the Realm struggle to hold their people in bondage. As an experiment in social control, the Realm enslaved almost the entire population and addicted them to drugs to keep them docile. Nevertheless, unrest grows. Whitewall plays a riskier game of diplomacy than Gethamane. While the city’s fabled walls protect it from many threats, Whitewall cannot simply shut out the world. It depends upon both the power of the Syndics and the lifeline of the Traveler’s Road. Should that lifeline be disrupted, the consequences would be disastrous. The power of the Syndics seems unlikely to wane soon, but they have never fought against the Realm. The Empress knew the true identities of the Syndics and knew better than to test their power. The Dynasts who currently squabble over her throne remain ignorant. Some feel that a bold strike, such as taking over a long-independent but prosperous city, could bring them sufficient prestige to seize the throne. The Deathlords play an undeniable part in the political game. In the Northwest, the Bishop of the Chalcedony Thurible already wields great influence over the cities of the Kunlun region through his religious tracts. He dreams of spreading his Silent Meadow of Dust until it meets Marama’s Fell, covering half the North in shadowland. In the Northeast, the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears rules the nation of Gradafes in all but name. More importantly, the terrifying Tear Eater tribes work her will. This in turn gives her effective rule of a wide region, as many city-states pay tribute to avoid the ravages of the deathworshiping barbarians. Lastly—but of greatest concern to Whitewall—the violent ghosts of Marama’s Fell slowly gather beneath the leadership of Thrice-Dread Achiba, a monstrous ghost of uncommon cunning and charisma. Nestled among the great nations and far-flung cultures, many little countries and tribes struggle to survive and find their way in the Time of Tumult. Many of them make deals with other powers… or have such partnerships thrust upon them. On the River of Tears, the effete city-states of Plenilune and the Saltspire League bow to the barbarian Bull of the North. The fierce sea rovers of Karn on Malice Bay find themselves caught between the Haslanti League, the Bull of the North and the Tear Eaters, and their potent ancestral ghosts can no longer protect them. They find new hope through the leadership of their bold new king—unaware that he is the Bull’s agent. At the other end of the North, the Zalvenesh dive for First Age artifacts at the mouth of the White Sea, enduring the icy waters with the help of their gods. The seafarers of Rajtul Island survive through their own strange partnership with the arcane elkmen. Whether they live in a great city or a reindeer-skin tent, the people of the North vow to endure whatever fate brings them, as they have always done.